Posted on 05/04/2008 3:52:17 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
In October 2004, the U.S. Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at U.S. bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
The memo came out four years ago and now the NYSlimes reports it.
I had to go back again to the article to catch something that was current.
Apparently in 2007 KBR found some unsafe wiring at a base and supposedly the military didn’t do anything about it.
Talk about digging deep for dirt.
Aha! KBR ==> Halliburton ==> Dick Cheney ==> George W. Bush.
So once again, the incompetence of Bush and Co. is on display! Thanks to the New York Times and their crack team of investigative journalists for uncovering more antics of this disgraceful administration.
(Do I really need to put the sarcasm tag here?)
It's not just the 4 year old memo. It's the fact that nearly 4 years later, another soldier was killed due to this problem, even though the specific location of the faulty wiring that killed him was the subject of an early 2007 warning memo. "Dirt" of that sort is well worth digging for. Instead of criticizing the NYT for printing it, we ought to be asking why conservative media outlets haven't seen fit to make an issue out of it.
Our motto: Be ALERT! (American needs more LERTS)
This is really old news.
Back in 2003 the MILITARY contracted (NOT KBR) for latrine, shower, and housing units and did not perform adequate QA/QC on the projects and ended up with a lot of poorly wired units.
Some of that was just because the third world contractors simply do not have the same standards as we do. What they consider normal is often deplorable.
So if you ever hear about the “shock showers” it probably is true.
I’m an electronics engineer who has been shocked senseless on a number of occasions. Some folks say I didn’t recover. Electrocuted in a shower or a swimming pool seems a bit far-fetched to me, although I’m not saying it didn’t happen. Electricity always follows the easiest path to ground, and if that happens to be through you, you’ll get shocked. I would hesitate to blame that on KBR. Usually getting between the electrical charge and the ground can be avoided. I wonder if these supposedly electrocuted people were attempting to change a light bulb or dry their hair at the time. Sounds fishy to me.
Although unlikely I was thinking along the lines of an “instant water heater” device ,, some of these are shower head units and in the 3rd world they probably don’t require a gfci to be in-circuit... I’ve seen some scary ones in Asia..
You would think that they troops should be able to step into the shower without fear of being electrocuted. KBR used electricians from Pakistan and pumps made in China for use outside the U.S. because they didn't meet U.S. safety standards. And as a result up to a dozen servicemen have died. But I'm sure KBR made money on the deal.
The latest electrocution occured in January of this year. It's hardly a dated subject.
But...I did not take it as old news, but rather a problem languishing in the not-my-job bureaucracy and apparently still killing people. The photo of the service panel was appalling. The also had a photo of the most recent casualty, a 5th Group NCO in Bagdad.
What was troubling was the number of people interviewed who found someone else to be responsible. But nobody seemed interested in stepping up to fix the problems.
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